Why Is the State Department ‘Arming’ Mexico’s Intelligence Agencies with Advanced Intercept Technologies?

Amid recent reports that the bodies of four Mexican journalists were discovered in a canal in the port city of Veracruz, less than a week after another journalist based in that city was found strangled in her home, the U.S. State Department “plans to award a contract to provide a Mexican government security agency with a system that can intercept and analyze information from all types of communications systems,” NextGov reported.

The most glaring and obvious question is: why?

Since President Felipe CalderÃ³n declared “war” against some of the region’s murderous drug cartels in 2006, some 50,000 Mexicans have been butchered. Activists, journalists, honest law enforcement officials but also ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire, the vast majority of victims, have been the targets of mafia-controlled death squads, corrupt police and the military.

Underscoring the savage nature of another “just war” funded by U.S. taxpayers, last week The Dallas Morning News reported that “23 people were found dead Friday–nine hanging from a bridge and 14 decapitated–across the Texas border in the city of Nuevo Laredo.”

The arcane and highly-ritualized character of the violence, often accompanied by sardonic touches meant to instill fear amongst people already ground underfoot by crushing poverty and official corruption that would make the Borgias blush, convey an unmistakable message: “We rule here!”

“The latest massacres are part of a continuing battle between the paramilitary group known as the Zetas and the Sinaloa cartel,” the Morning News averred. “The violence appears to be part of a strategy by the Sinaloa cartel to disrupt one of the most lucrative routes for drug smugglers by bringing increased attention from the federal government.”